Buddies
by viv-heart
Summary: SmokerHina for share-the-love-month-project on Tumblr. Atla-Au


AN: SmokerHina for sharethelovemonth project by Myladyday and Aerle on Tumblr. I am terribly sorry if the quality isn't as geat as it should be, but a lotf things happened in my last these past few weeks. I hope you enjoy nevertheless.

Disclaimer: One Piece belongs to Oda-sensei.

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Earth, Fire, Wind, Water

Only the Avatar can master all four elements and bring balance to the world.

But this tale isn't about the Avatar, or any of his close friends.

It's about two of the 'small' fighters for justice.

Two (not so) common police officers.

Hina cursed as she felt the first drops on her face and hands. The heavy clouds over her head have promised rain the whole day already, but she had hoped that it would last till night, when she would seek shelter anyway. But no, the luck wasn't on her side today. Or at any other day these past few weeks since she left Capital City to look for the notorious criminal duo consisting of the extremely aggressive and dangerous firebender Eustass Kidd and his partner, the cool-headed doctor Trafalgar Law who have robbed several banks and were on the run now.

The pink-haired metal-bender looked around, contemplating if she should look for a natural shelter or if building her own made more sense. Soon, she was sitting under an overhanging rock, still completely dry, while the rain was purring heavily around her. At times like these it was really useful to be an earth-bender, as the other elements wouldn't help much.

Well, some fire wouldn't be bad. Hina is cold, she thought, as a cold shiver ran down her spine. Hina would never admit it, but she wasn't able to make fire with sticks and stones and as her lighter broke some days ago, she had to spend the night in darkness and without a source of heat. And without smoking her beloved cigarettes of course.

The young woman tensed, as she felt the earth vibrate. Somebody was approaching her and he or she wasn't far away. But how did they get there? She hadn't seen nor sensed anybody in the radius of 15 km when she checked the last time.

Hina stood up, prepared to fight the intruder, waiting for him to walk around her shelter to decide if he was dangerous or not.

The first thing she saw, was the yellow and red air-nomad garb, making her calm down immediately. If the person was wearing this, there would be no reason to fight. The air-nation was more than peaceful.

"Smoker! Hina is surprised to see you!" the beautiful woman exclaimed as she realized who the person approaching her was. Usually, the man's presence was accompanied by heavy smoke coming from his cigars, making him easily recognizable but the rain prevented this effectively.

"Nor did I expect to meet you here." the soaked man muttered with a frown. He didn't show it, but he was extremely glad to have met his old friend in this weather, as it meant to be allowed to share the shelter with her. She wasn't heartless enough to kick him out when it was pissing like this.

He looked around, noticing the lack of fire.

"I should have thought that it was you, as there wasn't any light to be seen." he grinned, kneeling down and starting to lit a fire immediately. He struggled for a while, until finally loosing his patience and blasting the wood Hina had previously collected dry. It was an easy game to set it on fire afterwards and even lighting Hina's cigarettes.

The air-bender moved to sit next to Hina, who was staring into the fire, and leaned back, looking relaxed for once. They sat there in silence, their hands interlocked and waited for the night to fall over them. As they had the tendency to talk for hours on the phone, something neither would admit if asked, both felt like simply enjoying the others presence. After all, they didn't get the chance to do so very often.

It was hard to guess, but both were replaying the same events in their minds. They first met as trainees in the police-academy in the Capital City, where Hina often saved Smoker, who has been quite rebellious from the start. An unexpected bond of friendship formed between these two, even not breaking when Smoker left Capital City to follow his own path and haunt down criminals all over the country, getting well-known as "The White Hunter".

The second time, Hina met the white-haired man on Kyoshi Island, as both of them hunted down a group of criminals. The leader of the warrior's, a girl called Laki, had called for help after the disappearance of some of her best fighters, including her girlfriend Conis, and as the Avatar wasn't old enough to take on the case at that time, some of the most skilled police officers were send to deal with the problem, Hina and Smoker being two of them.

Smoker, not being one to often indulge in memories, had to admit that these were the times he liked to remember the most. Apart from the most interesting case of some insane criminals attacking the Kyoshi-warriors for unknown reason and not being caught for the period of over a year and than suddenly stopping, he got to spend a lot of time with Hina again and they even sort of adopted a little clumsy girl named Tashigi there.

Both still received letters from her, in which she told them about her daily life.

Currently, she was training to become a Kyoshi-warrior and had asked if she could travel with Smoker and fight injustice when she finished the training.

Hina had already agreed, not wanting to stand in the way of her little girl's dreams and was surprisingly content that Smoker would look out for her.

She knew he had his heart on the right place, even if it didn't seem like that most of the time.

They fell asleep like this, leaned against the rock that gave them shelter from rain, Hina's head resting on Smoker's shoulder, warm and content in their solitude. Best friends, never lovers, but people who knew that they meant more to each other more than any romance ever could.

As if there was time for romance when fighting injustice anyway...


End file.
